Virginia AG Probing Michael Mann For Fraud

eldavojohn writes "Republican Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has requested receipts and research documents relating to nearly half a million dollars in state taxpayer money used to conduct climate change research at the University of Virginia while under direction of Michael Mann, originator of the famous 2001 IPCC Hockey Stick graph depicting rapid climate change. Mann appears to be a prime target for Cuccinelli — who has also requested hearings with the EPA to contest the grounds of their carbon dioxide studies. Mann's expenditures of taxpayer money may become problematic if Cuccinelli finds violations of Virginia's Fraud Against Taxpayers Act. Cuccinelli has been active in pushing conservative views in the past, including an effort to remove the titillating mammary from the beloved Great Seal of Virginia. No end in sight for the politicizing of the science and research surrounding climate change."

Comments

Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[Anonymous Coward]

He's also the asshole that told all the public universities in Virginia they could no longer have policies of non-discrimination towards gays.

Stay classy.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[Barrinmw]

Religion is a behavior, it's not something should be regulated like race and other innate attributes. I mean we don't want special legislation protecting people who are homo- or xenophobic.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[dangitman]

Being gay is a behavior,

No it's not. One could "be gay" buy never have sex with another person of the same sex. Just as slashdotters can "be straight" and remain virgins.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[obarthelemy]

Being gay is probably genetic.There's physical differences in the brains of gays. There are gay animals. You can't choose to be gay or not, same as you can choose who you fall in love with. What gays can do is not act on their desires, sames as religious heterosexuals can choose not to have sex outside of marriage OR not for procreation AND not divorce when they change their minds.. and they do that sooo well !

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't let facts get in the way of your partisan hatred. All he did was point out that only the state legislature has the authority to mandate such policies.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[GooberToo]

Being gay is probably genetic.There's physical differences in the brains of gays.

I've pointed this out before but was moderated into oblivion. What you're saying is true. These differences clearly show up in MRIs. They have different brain chemistry - just as normal males and females also differ; whereby gays match neither.

What's not commonly known and likely the reason I've always been moderated negatively is that many "gays" do not have different brain chemistry from other males which likely means for many "gays" it absolutely is a choice.

What I have done a poor job of explaining is, of those who call themselves gay, there is very likely those who are born gay, having different brain chemistry, and those who choose to act gay. And so it seems the truth is likely somewhere in the middle. For some its a choice. For others, not so much. At least, that's what science seems to be saying on the subject once you get past the political correctness BS.

Another tidbit is also likely explains why I get moderated to hell is that many mental illnesses also show up on MRIs. Which suggests diseases such as sociopaths and psychopaths, among many others, are not actually diseases. You can't have it both ways. If you follow the logical conclusion, either these are not diseases or they are. And if male and female is not a disease then it suggests that sociopaths, psychopaths, and homosexuality are also not a disease. But it also suggests that sociopaths and psychopaths are not wrongly persecuted and even worse, testing may be to the greater benefit of society. Sadly this means most CEOs would wind up the pariahs of society rather than the overly paid, valued members they current are.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[Saint Stephen]

You know, the only place where the kind of thinking - open hatred towards a class of society, is considered normal and encouraged by society is - the sorts of views expressed by you and parrotted endlessly here :-) It's quite ironic, when one thinks about it....

You're what you hate :-)

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you actually read the opinion? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/Cuccinelli.pdf

He's telling the public universities that, in his opinion, they don't have the authority to have those sorts of policies unless specifically authorized by the General Assembly. Previous AGs have said the same thing. Part of his job is to provide legal advice, which is exactly what he did.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[Kryptonian Jor-El]

Hmm, look at that. 4 of my mom's 15 siblings have schizophrenia, but 11/15 don't! But their parents didnt have it, and their children don't either! Wow, but how can that be? schizophrenia is genetic...but they're not all crazy.

I guess science is a lie, and they all chose to be schizophrenic.

Or, you could have no idea what regressive traits are, and are pulling this is out your ass.

Being gay is no more a choice than being schizophrenic or even being straight. Gay people are attracted to the pheromones of the same sex in the same way straight people are attracted to the opposite sex's pheromones.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[compro01]

Another tidbit is also likely explains why I get moderated to hell is that many mental illnesses also show up on MRIs. Which suggests diseases such as sociopaths and psychopaths, among many others, are not actually diseases. You can't have it both ways. If you follow the logical conclusion, either these are not diseases or they are

How do you figure that? The root cause of something does not determine whether it is or is not a disease. For example, a bacterial infection and gut flora both have the same root cause, but one is a disease and the other is normal, as the former is harmful and the latter is typically beneficial or at least neutral.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[icebraining]

straight people are attracted to the opposite sex's pheromones

Do pheromones travel in JPEG files?

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[BitwiseX]

Washington Post article about it.

"U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said in a statement that Cuccinelli's advice would "damage the Commonwealth's reputation for academic excellence and diversity."
""What he's saying is reprehensible," said Vincent F. Callahan Jr., a former Republican member of the House of Delegates who serves on George Mason's board of visitors. "I don't know what he's doing, opening up this can of worms."


Total prick. He might as well of put out a press release that simply said "I hate fags." As a Virginia resident, and a friend to some of the few homosexual persons whom have managed to, and are somehow willing to stick it out in the state: We hate Ken Cuccinelli.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

What's not commonly known and likely the reason I've always been moderated negatively is that many "gays" do not have different brain chemistry from other males which likely means for many "gays" it absolutely is a choice.

Or it means that MRIs aren't the be-all and end-all of measuring a person's biochemical make-up.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[dogmatixpsych]

Just to add a little to your response. At best - yes I've read the actual studies myself - genetics and biology account for about 20% of the variance in homosexuality (and about 50% of studies find that genetics is a significant factor in homosexuality and 50% do not). In other words, even assuming that studies that show a significant biological contributor to homosexuality (that also assumes that biology predated the attitudes/feelings/behaviors) that either biological factors that we do not understand yet or, more likely, psychosocial factors are responsible for one being homosexual.

This means that things in people's lives - choices they made or things that happened to them and how they reacted to those things - are mainly responsible for homosexuality. Biology plays a role, just as it does in just about everything, but it is not the main "cause" (if we want to use that word) of homosexuality.

If anyone wants citations, I can look them up. Just respond to this post and I'll get back to you.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[KiahZero]

The opinion is remarkably poor legal advice, as it fails to account for the relevant differences between local governments and universities and does not speak to the general grants of authority given to Virginia universities to craft their own rules.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[Lokinator]

As a gay man, I find the very concept of barring such anti-discrimination policies offensive. However, before we really get the bandwagon rolling, what say we ask a couple of questions:

1) What have past Virginia AG's advised cities, towns, and political subdivisions regarding non-discrimination policy generally and LGBT affecting law specifically? What was their reasoning? What is Cucinelli's?

2) Do, in fact, any provisions exist in Virginia statute or state constitutional provision that a competent attorney would be compelled to advise his client (the Universities and colleges) that such a policy (and thus they) are in violation of, or potentially might reasonably to be argued to be in violation of?

3) Given the increasing evidence that at least some portions of the "Global Warming" theory are based on spurious or manufactured evidence (without addressing in any way whether or not anthropogenic global warming valid as a theory or in any way a verifiable phenomenon), is it not the duty of a sitting AG when the question is raised about whether the science and research paid for on the public dime might be fraudulent, to then investigate such questions - and if a preponderance of evidence shows that fraud was committed on the public dime, is it then not the duty of said Attorney General to prosecute the perpetrator of the fraud and misuse of state funds to the full extent of the law?

(For the newbs, in most instances this would mean an affirmative answer to : Did Mann knowingly publish false or misleading results? If so, were state funds used in producing/creating/obtaining such false data?)

4) Aside from Cucinelli as a common factor does the University policy issue have anything to do with the rightness or wrongness of the investigation of Mann and his global warming work?

To address our first question, we have but to look at Cucinelli's advisory letter itself . He cites a number of relevant prior Virginia Attorney Generals opinions, yet notably fails to cite either constitutional or statutory provision - instead basing his reasoning on the theory that unless it is specifically permitted, that a University or other subordinate political division (from governor to rural village) may not extend or expand civil rights beyond those enumerated by the Virginia General Assembly, a body that as recently as a few weeks ago (and on 26 other occasions) has declined with varying degrees of vehemence to add sexual orientation or expression to the list of protected classes (i.e., list of things forbidden to discriminate based upon).

The actions or lack thereof of the Virginia General Assembly, notwithstanding the opinions of the current and several prior Attorney Generals of the State of Virginia, are simply irrelevant. Our fundamental legal tradition is not "whatever is not specifically permitted, is forbidden" - rather, it is "whatever is not specifically forbidden, is permitted" which undermines a basic argument of Cucinelli and his predecessors.

Further, as demonstrated in a long line of prior cases, subordinate political divisions may extend MORE civil rights protections, but never less than those extended by their respective superior bodies, subject to the provisions of the prior paragraph.

Since the Virginia General Assembly has, to the best of my knowledge, never barred subordinate bodies from extending such protections to allege such a bar is mistaken at best, and in my opinion, malicious bigotry at worst.

To address our second question, I return to the reasoning addressed in the first. Any competent attorney would, given the opportunity, to cite clear statutory law would do so - as it would substantially strengthen their legal argument. I find the absence of such citation telling, to put it mildly and the "public policy" argument weak on the face of it. If public policy barred any action not specifically authorized by

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[Cassius Corodes]

If you think about it normal society is quite ok with open hatred towards a number of classes of people in all settings. (e.g. by action: rapists, murders; by beliefs: racists, Nazis; by profession: (and perhaps to a lesser extent) lawyers and politicians; etc.) Its considered normal and is encouraged by society. Its only noticed when for a subset of people it drifts out too far from the rest of society.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[IICV]

Being gay is probably genetic.There's physical differences in the brains of gays.

I've pointed this out before but was moderated into oblivion. What you're saying is true. These differences clearly show up in MRIs. They have different brain chemistry - just as normal males and females also differ; whereby gays match neither.

You know, just because different brain structures show up in an MRI doesn't mean that they're genetic; for instance, if you're a taxi driver, your brain has probably changed in order to better store a map of your area. It's difficult to tell, post hoc, whether or not consistent differences in gross brain structures* cause or are caused by different behaviors. However, by your "logical conclusion", being a taxi cab driver is a disease.

Furthermore, it doesn't matter how much being gay is due to nature or due to nurture. We don't discriminate against people because they choose to ferry passengers in a car all day long; we don't discriminate against people because they're immoral dickwads; we don't discriminate against people because they're completely asocial and spend all their free time trolling Slashdot; we shouldn't discriminate against people because they choose to have hot hot gay sex all night long. As long as it doesn't impair your ability to be happy and function in society, there's no need to classify it as a disease.

*Yes I know they're all gross

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[compro01]

One theory I've heard thrown around is that the trait exists in some small percentage of people, but is only triggered by an outside factor sometimes, possibly population density. As density rises, the probability of the homosexual individual finding another homosexual individual rises sharply. If the density is insufficient, they reproduce as normal and the gene carries on. I suspect that the advent of Judaism, Christianity, and other monogamous anti-homosexual religions may have affected this in recent times.

As an aside, a trait doesn't have to be beneficial to stay in the gene pool, it just has to not be (sufficiently) harmful.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[dryeo]

Survival of the fittest family or tribe. It can be beneficial to have some members of the group who do not have children but instead help raise others children.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[adamofgreyskull]

Another tidbit is also likely explains why I get moderated to hell is that many mental illnesses also show up on MRIs. Which suggests diseases such as sociopaths and psychopaths, among many others, are not actually diseases. You can't have it both ways.

Hmmm...no. IANANS but I would say that sociopathy and psycopathy are referred to as "illnesses" or "diseases" because there are direct links between these conditions and extremely negative behaviour, i.e. violence. Homosexuality, on the other hand, results in a sexual attraction to someone of the same sex, with extremely few, if any negative effects to society. You cannot compare them. I don't think you get modded down because your views are morally objectionable, or because of a politically correct under-current. I think you are modded down because you don't make sense.

You seem to be saying that the only two possible conclusions are that either everything that is detectable by MRI is a disease or that nothing detectable by MRI is a disease. This. Makes. No. Sense. You say "If you follow the logical conclusion..." and then abandon logic. The preference for banana milkshake over chocolate milkshake will likely one day be discernible on an MRI scan, if not already. Should we then say that because expression of a preference for a kind of milkshake over another is detectable by MRI and is clearly not a disease, that sociopathy is also not a disease?

tl;dr My point of view: Without too deep an inquiry into the definition of "disease", a variation in "brain chemistry" is not necessarily a "disease" however the effects of brain chemistry *may* be called a disease.

No matter, by framing your arguments as science, criticising sociopathic CEOs and alluding to down-moderation in the past, you've stolen some "Insightful" mod-points. Well played.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[Cassius Corodes]

I've read a paper? where it was postulated that homosexuality in males was caused by / influenced by the same set of genes that increased the fertility in females. Therefore the gene set causes a detriment when in a male but a benefit when in a female. Given 50/50 distribution of sexes, as long as the penalty in males is less then the benefit in females its will spread. What you mention also plays into this as having only one set would basically give you all / most of the benefit with very little of the cost. Additionally keep in mind that having no children doesn't mean that you are a dead weight to your genes - you are free to help out others (who would likely be related and share a subset of genes) and possibly increase the overall percentage of those genes in the gene pool. However this only holds in species that operate in related groups, and the gay gene cannot be above some ratio to normals or it would become a detriment.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[jdb2]

Another tidbit is also likely explains why I get moderated to hell is that many mental illnesses also show up on MRIs. Which suggests diseases such as sociopaths and psychopaths, among many others, are not actually diseases.

Yes, that *is* probably why you get moderated to hell, because you're *plainly wrong*. Sorry, but the idea of mind-body separation, originally championed by René Descartes in the first half of the *17th century*, was proven to be bullshit, along with most of Freudian psychoanalysis, a long time ago. And good riddance since these bodies of ideas have plagued the understanding and treatment of mental illness ever since.

Your *brain is an organ* and as such is subject to affliction by many and various disorders and *diseases* that interfere with its normal functioning.

And if you're wondering, yes I have a mental illness ( OCD ) and I know many others that do as well ( and have known, as some have taken their own lives ) as my family is heavily involved in NAMI. You're comment, which comes only a day after the Nami Metropolitan Houston Walk, is a testament to how far we still have to go as a society in ridding ourselves of destructive ignorance such as you possess. Welcome to the 21st century.

jdb2

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[PachmanP]

Bullshit. That's the same tired tripe they've been pushing since well before the civil rights movement. You can't discriminate against blacks and you can't discriminate against gays. Get used to it.

Actually, in a democracy you can discriminate against whoever the hell you want as long as the majority agrees with you. Get used to it.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[Abcd1234]

This means that things in people's lives - choices they made or things that happened to them and how they reacted to those things - are mainly responsible for homosexuality.

Weird that you choose to completely ignore things like the environment in the womb (hormone balance in utero is known to play a part in gender differentiation, so it follows that those and possibly other affects would come into play during the development of gender identity).

But yeah, you're right, I'm sure the only two factors involved in gender identity are genetics and personal choice...

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[MadUndergrad]

Maybe you need to retake civics class. The majority can sit on it if the courts deem their laws unconstitutional. It's time you got used to the 14th amendment, advice Kenny could use too. We've had it what, like 150 years now?

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[klenwell]

Yes, let's see your citations. The fact that 50% of studies find a significant genetic factor and 50% do not says nothing about their validity. The references to psychology in your signature and alias do not inspire confidence. The field of psychology in general has a pretty atrocious record in addressing the subject of homosexuality scientifically. And I wouldn't expect most psychological studies to have much insight on anything related to genetics.

Moreover, there is evidence that homosexuality may not be genetic, but still not a choice as you suggest. Research indicates that hormones or chemicals in the mother's womb play a significant role in determining sexuality and among men born to mothers who already have had boy (i.e. men with older brothers), there is a greater incidence of homosexuality. This comes up off the top of google: http://www.seattlepi.com/national/275425_gay27.html In short, I would give much greater weight to more recent neuroscientific studies than most strictly psychological studies.

Finally, talk with almost any man who is openly gay (emphasis on openly) and he'll convincingly disabuse you of the notion that it's "choices they made".

For a fascinating account of the tumultuous history of homosexuality and the DSM (a textbook case of the politicization of science for both bad and good), I highly recommend this This American Life broadcast:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/204/81-Words

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[Lars T.]

Its only noticed when for a subset of people it drifts out too far from the rest of society.

More like: Its only "noticed" by a subset of people when they think that others must hate them just as much as they hate them. They then use that as an excuse to increase their hate.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[idiotnot]

general grants of authority given to Virginia universities to craft their own rules.

Which cannot differ from the rules set out by the General Assembly. This is the primary difference between Virginia and many other states (PA, KY, and MA excepted), in that localities, or in this case Commonwealth-owned corporations, have no legal power other that what's granted them by the GA.

It's akin to the USPS giving an okay to interstate shipments of medical marijuana by mail; they can't just arbitrarily do that without Congressional authorization. Hell, they can't even raise postage rates without Congressional approval.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[Curunir_wolf]

He's also the asshole that told all the public universities in Virginia they could no longer have policies of non-discrimination towards gays.

Stay classy.

Not exactly. Several of the colleges asked him for an opinion about their policy. And he told them that since the General Assembly had declined to add "sexual orientation" to the list of Virginia's "protected classes", that they could not provide special protections for that class by themselves.

The governor later clarified the issue by stating "Discrimination based on factors such as one’s sexual orientation or parental status violates the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. Therefore, discrimination against enumerated classes of persons set forth in the Virginia Human Rights Act or discrimination against any class of persons without a rational basis is prohibited,"

You ask a lawyer for an opinion on the law, he's going to give you a legal opinion, not some tripe based on emotional biases.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[Curunir_wolf]

Religion is a behavior, it's not something should be regulated like race and other innate attributes. I mean we don't want special legislation protecting people who are homo- or xenophobic.

But religious practice is explicitly protected by the Constitution, right there in the first amendment.

But then so is just about any behavior, as there is nothing in the Constitution that allows the federal government to regulate interpersonal behavior at all. The SCOTUS has affirmed this principle by ruling that states' archaic "sodomy" laws were unconstitutional.

So, in point of fact, gay behavior is protected as a right of the people. Saying that gay people need special treatment is something else altogether. After all, they are the only ones on any list of enumerated "protected classes" that have never been denied the right to vote.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[Xabraxas]

After all, they are the only ones on any list of enumerated "protected classes" that have never been denied the right to vote.

Voting isn't the only right we should be worried about protecting for minority groups.

Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed

[Chris Burke]

You ask a lawyer for an opinion on the law, he's going to give you a legal opinion, not some tripe based on emotional biases.

Okay, a fair enough statement. The question then would be: Why did a lawyer -- not just any fly-by-night ambulance chaser the bar has yet to catch up with but the Attorney General representing the State of Virginia -- issue a legal opinion on civil rights which did not take into account the 14th fucking Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?

Was his opinion just that half-assed? Did the universities specifically ask him to base his opinion solely on state law and ignore the U.S. Constitution? Is it conceivable that he was simply unaware of the 14th Amendment and the impact it had on the States? I understand that the Virginia AG is elected; did the people of Virginia select a lawyer so incompetent that it took the Governor -- who unlike the A.G. is not explicitly in a lawyering position -- to step in and point out the obvious?

Or could it be that his oft-stated belief that homosexuality is wrong and should not be protected affected his opinion, such that he deliberately chose to frame his argument in a Constitution-less context so he could claim that anti-discrimination policies were not legal?

I'm just asking, because despite asking a lawyer his opinion on the law, it sure seems like "tripe based on emotional biases" is what the Universities got.

Woo, witchhunts!

[Anonymous Coward]

After the whole Climategate thing fizzled, I was wondering when some enterprising Republican in the US would take it upon himself to try to drum up some more bullshit. I guess after the guy was done making sure you can discriminate against the gays the way the good lord intended, Cuccinelli thought he'd move on to something that's a better use of the taxpayer's dollars.

Yay Virginia!

Re:Woo, witchhunts!

[Anonymous Coward]

I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but I'll play your game.

Let's set aside all rational thought for a moment and accept, just for the sake of argument, your ridiculous premise that homosexuality is a "behavioral decision".

Now, explain to me why a person should be fired from their job at a university for something they may (or may not) do in the privacy of their own home, with a consensual partner. Explain the rational basis for firing someone for something that is completely unrelated to their job performance in any way, shape, or form.

Let's put it in terms of other "behavioral decisions. Explain to me why it's okay to fire someone for being a smoker. Let's say that the person in question never smokes during work hours, or anywhere near the place of work. Let's say no one has ever smelled smoke on the person's breath or clothing. Basically, there is no way for anyone to know that this person is a smoker, except that one day you happen to stumble upon this fact. Maybe you saw him smoking outside of the workplace on the weekend. Maybe he just mentioned it to you in passing one day. Explain to me how it's okay to fire the person for that reason, and that reason alone.

I eagerly anticipate your response.

Re:Woo, witchhunts!

[Anonymous Coward]

So, basically, we have some ignorant Southern politician with a fear of homosexuals who wants to "probe" a "Mann"? Did I get that right?

=P

Re:Woo, witchhunts!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's set aside all rational thought for a moment and accept, just for the sake of argument, your ridiculous premise that homosexuality is a "behavioral decision".

Prove that it isn't. There is no science to prove that it's anything but a behavior decision.

"No science"? "No science" ? Are you fucking kidding me?!?

You can't even be bothered to do the simplest of research before making such an embarrassingly ridiculous statement? Here, let me help you. Start with the 89 references at the bottom of this article.

By your argument, everyone should hire people who don't conform to standards they set (moral or otherwise) despite espousing those standards for themselves.

No. You neither understood, nor responded to, a word I said.

I will ask again, and continue asking until you can actually answer the question:

Explain the rational basis for firing someone for something that is completely unrelated to their job performance in any way, shape, or form.

Don't go off on some tangent about firing someone who was, as you stated, "hired under false pretenses". We're talking about someone who was hired to do a job, is doing that job, but gets fired for something completely unrelated to the job, not to mention utterly private.

Re:Woo, witchhunts!

[sumdumass]

Explain the rational basis for firing someone for something that is completely unrelated to their job performance in any way, shape, or form.

Here is the problem. And this problem is a key to why people think gay rights are "special" rights and do not think entitlements should be created for them.

If it's wrong to fire someone for something completely not related to their job performance, then why should only gays be protected? Why shouldn't everyone be protected? So if someone does something on their own time, outside of company property, that doesn't effect their ability to do the job at all, nor does it put the company in a bad light with their customers, then why is it only gays who should be protected from termination and not you who goes hunting on the weekends or drinks a few beers with friends, or hooked up with 3 college girls- one of them happening to be a stripper, or you who campaigned for and supported some political entity that the boss doesn't agree with?

The problem here seems to be that gays want something special for themselves. They want to be able to visit sick loved ones in the hospital yet other unmarried people cannot do it just the same, they want protections from being fired for activities outside the workplace, yet others will still be able to be fired. It simply comes off to many, many people as special rights, not human rights.

Re:Woo, witchhunts!

[Glothar]

Okay, here's a novel thought:

I agree with you (mostly).

Gays shouldn't be fired because they're gay. Men shouldn't be fired because they have sex with strippers. Women shouldn't be fired because go to fetish bars on the weekend. People shouldn't be fired for getting speeding tickets. I shouldn't be fired for going to a Colbert Report taping and you shouldn't be fired for going to a Glenn Beck taping.

None of that has any impact on your work. In fact, many states already have protections on many of those things.

Giving gays that same protection isn't a "special privilege" it's "equality" and "providing basic human rights".

The only reason why giving homosexual couples the right to visit each other in hospitals where unmarried heterosexual couples cannot is due entirely to the fact that in most states it's illegal for homosexuals to marry.. Homophobic legislatures (such as my wonderful home state of Virginia) passed laws explicitly prohibiting it. This was, in many cases, expressly done to prohibit homosexual couples from enjoying the rights and protections offered to married heterosexuals.

So, much like my solution to your previous argument, the answer seems clear to me: Let homosexuals marry. Then all you have to do is say: married couples have hospital visitation rights. Voila! Everyone is equal again!

Non-peer Review

[Machupo]

Great...

Definitely the beginning of the end when science is evaluated by non-scientists (or bought/paid for court "expert witnesses").

Re:Non-peer Review

[Barrinmw]

When Scientists act like politicians, I don't find it hard to believe that politicians will soon act like scientists.

Re:Non-peer Review

[shellster_dude]

Mod parent up. Climategate was the result of scientist taking their findings out of the field of science and into politics. Whether malicious or not, these scientists let politics skew their research. They modified data that "didn't look right". They deleted "anomalous" data. All of these things are clearly in the realm of politics instead of science. Scientists have the responsibility of presenting the science warts and all, as it is. Especially when some of the science is being funded by tax dollars and can potentially affect millions of lives because of the legislation which will be based on the results.

Climategate is no longer about whether climate change or global warming is or isn't happening. It is about the egregious abuse of the scientific method and peer review.

Re:Non-peer Review

[Barrinmw]

The way I see it, the cherry picking of data should have been the focus of climate gate, which was only slightly touched upon with the "hide the decline" part.

Re:Non-peer Review

[Anonymous Coward]

What cherry picking of data are you referring to? The only people I've seen cherry picking data is people who argue AGW isn't happening. You've done it yourself multiple times in this Slashdot story alone! Do you understand what cherry picking is? I suppose not -- I'll explain.

It is considering only data that confirms what you would like to believe and ignoring all data that does not. You have done it by pointing out a statement that the warming in the past ten years has not been statistically significant, but ignoring all the data that shows the warming is statistically significant over other periods of time. You have done it be referring to the Arctic ice "increasing", although that refers to the surface area of the ice and not the volume, and you ignore what is happening to the ice in other places on the globe.

Re:Non-peer Review

[niiler]

It is everybody's job to get involved in politics in a democracy, whether they be scientists or no. And whereas we are all qualified to evaluate the merits of our politicians, there are very few of us who can evaluate the merits of science. In fact, it is often quite difficult to evaluate the merits of science outside of one's discipline.

Re:Non-peer Review

[snowwrestler]

So how do you explain the other studies that have since come to similar conclusions using independent lines of study?

Re:Non-peer Review

[Troed]

I don't know - can you point me to one of them?

Mann hockeystick #1: falsified (severe errors, this is the one Al Gore and IPCC referenced so happily)

Mann hockeystick #2: falsified (spaghetti cherry picking - although those without statistical knowledge still claim it's valid)

Briffa hockeystick: One tree in Siberia no science makes.

I know of no other tree ring hockeysticks. Basically, tree rings aren't good temperature proxies and most dendrologists know this.

However, the lead scientist involved, Michael Bailee, said that the oak ring data requested was not relevant to temperature reconstruction records.

Although ancient oaks could give an indication of one-off dramatic climatic events, such as droughts, they were not useful as a temperature proxy because they were highly sensitive to water availability as well as past temperatures, he added.

“It’s been dressed up as though we are suppressing climate data, but we have never produced climate records from our tree rings,” Professor Bailee said.

“In my view it would be dangerous to try and make interpretations about the temperature from this data.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7102743.ece

Guess who used lots and lots of oaks to make a spaghetti hockeystick.

If we disregard the falsified tree ring hockeysticks, science is suddenly back in the game - and with that comes the Medieval Warm Period (global as it was), the Roman warm period and a lot of other warm periods _warmer than today_. ... and all that, while we at the same time have huge UHI problems with our temperature record and never, ever, should graft those temperatures onto proxies (and guess who made THAT ... ).

Mann should never be allowed to publish anywhere again. He doesn't do science.

Ken Cuccinelli

[TimmyDee]

What an asshole...going after academics for political reasons. What's next?

Re:Ken Cuccinelli

[Barrinmw]

From his point of view, his state may have spent a large deal of money on something that may have given tainted results. How many pro-climate change supporters would act any different in the same position had Michael Mann brought proof against global warming?

Re:Ken Cuccinelli

[dangitman]

The scientists and academics allowed themselves to become political;

What does that even mean? All science has political implications. That doesn't mean the researchers are doing it for politics, and it certainly doesn't warrant government harassment of scientists. There had better be a damn good reason and some solid evidence of malfeasance before such "probing" is initiated.

Re:Ken Cuccinelli

[obarthelemy]

To me, allocation and use of public funds - taxes - is by definition political, and I'm happy someone is checking they are wisely spent.

But, I'm not sure there enough suspicion to specifically investigate that guy, nor that other investigation may prove more wirth it, if less politically rewarding.

Re:Ken Cuccinelli

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that there is a large population of people who don't support the idea of climate change? And if its not able to stand up against political pressure, those people Will Never be coerced.

Which is why science should be based on the scientific method, and not on public opinion.

Re: Ken Cuccinelli

[Black Parrot]

a more precise listing of what political reasons you think may be present would be nice.

Contrary to what the talking heads would have you believe, Republicans -- the politicians and party leaders, not the voters -- aren't conservative. Their 'base' is billionaires, and their political philosophy is that the proper role of government is to ensure that the rich get richer faster.

Fighting climate change is going to cost some billionaires a small fraction of their income, so devout Republicans are desperate to prove that nothing needs to be done.

So we get the absurd notion that climate change is a liberal conspiracy.

Re:Ken Cuccinelli

[Penguinisto]

Well, for what it's worth, Michael Mann and a few others contribute regularly to the arguably political website known as Real Climate, a website which isn't exactly known to allow dissenting views.

By their own words, the site was organized to provide immediate spin/response (you pick) to media stories on the subject of AGW... much like any other environmental organization does for topics that relate to their own specific causes... organizations that most folks do not hesitate to label as political in nature.

Re:Ken Cuccinelli

[squiggleslash]

Well, for what it's worth, Michael Mann and a few others contribute regularly to the arguably political website known as Real Climate, a website which isn't exactly known to allow dissenting views.

Excuse me, but why would it? There's information that has scientific credibility and there's stuff that isn't. I would expect a site like Real Climate to post what is generally thought by real scientists to be accurate, not publish "dissenting positions" for the sake of "balance".

Balance can mean a lot of things, but when balance is advocated for balances sake, to the point that for every truthful statement, a lie must be told as well, then it serves nobody, and is utterly unethical to engage in.

Re:Ken Cuccinelli

[Goldsmith]

Accused and exonerated. Don't forget that little bit.

IF the NSF review (it was their money) had shown that he had even simply violated ethical principles, then I could see a justification for a criminal investigation. This research has been through several reviews (and the reviews are now under review), and he's not been found guilty of anything.

If AGs are out there bringing charges against scientists when scientific review boards claim nothing has been done wrong, then the system is broken. There's no purpose to having scientific review boards if politicians bring criminal charges against scientists doing research they don't like. In retrospect, it was nice that Bush just forbid funding for stem cell research. That was the correct way to use political tools to prevent research the politicians didn't want done. This current action is setting a precedent which is absolutely terrifying for a scientist. How do we know whether the research the government is paying us to do will piss someone off, or make the wrong person look bad and get us in court?

Oh, and if you want a specific political reason for why he's doing this:
He wants press.

Re:Ken Cuccinelli

[Penguinisto]

I wasn't aware that Penn State's board had exonerated Mann (this was recent - as earlier this month). Looking further into it, the NSF Office of the Inspector General is doing (not 'has done', is doing) a meta-investigation of this (which is in and of itself unusual. Before you say it - mind you that the NSF currently doesn't answer to an administration which could be accused of being pre-disposed against Mann).

This means overall, I doubt that he's free and clear just yet. Until that point, my assertion stands.

Re:Ken Cuccinelli

[squiggleslash]

Except elephants have trunks.

Your point is, what, exactly? That RealClimate removes what it believes to be false statements from the comments?

And why is that bad when the site itself aims to report the actual science and correct the numerous myths and falsehoods being spread by the anti-science people? If RealClimate was putting itself forward as a debating chamber with no views on the legitimacy of the scientific method, that'd be one thing. But it's not, it undermines the aims of the site if the site, albeit through comments made by third parties in the comments section, becomes an amplifier for the very myths and lies its trying to debunk.

If a website that promotes mathematics kept removing comments arguing that integration involves changing x^2 into x/2, using obscufication to promote the lie, would you have a problem with that? Does the fact that a more vocal group have chosen to lie about climate science change that principle?

Re:Ken Cuccinelli

[Ill_Omen]

If a reputable scientist came out with a strongly researched paper saying that "hey, maybe this global warming thing won't be quite so bad", you know what I'd say?

"Stonking great!"

Contrary to what a lot of the anti-AGW crowd thinks, people in the AGW crowd aren't actually pleased by climate change. We don't want climate-inspired regulations because we have some weird regulation fetish. We want changes because we're actually worried that bad things are going to happen in our lifetimes if we don't change our behavior. We're not going to be sad if the bad things don't happen.

Re:Ken Cuccinelli

[niiler]

Here are the links to the various exonerations of Mann (including the editorial in Nature).

• Penn State
• the British Parliamentary inquiry
• the Oxford panel
• Nature.com

Re:Ken Cuccinelli

[hkmwbz]

So scientists set up a site where they can give their side of the story, and are being completely open and honest about it. On the other hand, oil-funded front groups actively try to hide their connections, and have entire networks of sites dedicated to spreading right-wing lies about science.

Gee...

Re:Ken Cuccinelli

[bzipitidoo]

The problem is the politicization of science.

Consulting the electorate can be an effective way of arriving at some consensus on issues that cannot be easily answered scientifically. For example, should we spend more money on roads and infrastructure, or defense, or health care, or something else? Should we allow abortions, or file sharing? Analyses based on good information can provide some insight into how effective a particular idea might be, what problems are most urgent. Scientific studies are not perfect (what is?), but much better to base decisions on that than blind guessing or gut instinct. Technological advances provide more options. But none of this can make our decisions for us. We have to do that. And we should decide such matters ourselves, not demand that science provide all the answers.

Some politicians just don't understand that. These dim witted ones are wont to treat scientific studies as if they are political opponents or allies. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. They cast aspersions on the data, which is so pointless. Check the data, don't try to beat it up with innuendo! That's like doubting that there were ever baseball players with .400 batting averages, just because. Compare to other data, don't just indulge in baseless speculation. If necessary, have new data collected. That's all that need be done. Such a waste of time and effort and money to invoke politics on issues that can be settled with information. Politics should be reserved for larger issues, for the hard questions.

But instead, they run away from facts. They persist in thinking we don't really know much. when we actually do know a great deal more than they imagine. They indulge in the sin of denial. They want things that are demonstrably not true to be true, act as if they are true, and act as if everyone, including good scientists, does the same thing. Even as they use the fruits of scientific and technological advancements that are all around us, things such as cars, planes, plastics, medicines, phones, computers, TVs, and much, much more, they manage, incredibly, to convince themselves science is just bull. And that scientists are nothing more than high grade fakers. These idiot politicians turned armchair scientists are worse, much worse, than the people second guessing the decisions of coaches of professional sport teams.

Pure trolling

[Cyberax]

That's pure trolling from Cuccinelli, he has not asked for the data (which is open) related to the papers in question, but ALL of Mann's e-mail with about 20 people.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/05/cuccinelli_is_using_the_law_to.php

Fraud? It's looking him in the mirror

[TimmyDee]

Maybe someone should sue Cuccinelli for fraud. After all, this sounds like a waste of taxpayer money if I've ever heard of one.

Re:Fraud? It's looking him in the mirror

[je ne sais quoi]

Don't hold your breath: Persecution of scientists who support inconvenient ideas is a tried and true tradition of politicians who wish to maintain power. During the cold war, they would call you communist and wreck your career if you supported social reforms. They took away Linus Pauling's passport and only gave it back to him so he could travel to Stockholm to receive his Nobel Prize. Oppenheimer's reputation never did recover after his security clearance was revoked, even though everything they said about him was a complete lie. Before that, the church would try you for heresy if you were uppity. Also, every time a dictator or oligarchy takes power, they always kill the intellectuals first.

Mann did invite a lot of criticism by not opening his data when people asked him for it. I'm referring of course to the issues with the bristlecone pine and his convolution of several sets of temperature proxies. I haven't heard of any evidence that Mann is involved in any fraud though, but witch hunts by their very nature never come up empty-handed. This one won't either.

Re:Fraud? It's looking him in the mirror

[oiron]

Mann did invite a lot of criticism by not opening his data when people asked him for it. I'm referring of course to the issues with the bristlecone pine and his convolution of several sets of temperature proxies. I haven't heard of any evidence that Mann is involved in any fraud though, but witch hunts by their very nature never come up empty-handed. This one won't either.

I think you're confusing Michael E. Mann, who conducted some research based on climate data with the CRU which actually publishes some of the data.

The controversy in that case was just this: CRU publishes a compilation of recent near-surface temperature, in association with the Hadley Centre. This is made up of data from various national meteorological agencies, which is processed to remove local noise and variations (urban heat island effect, moving of weather stations, etc), gridded and used to produce global surface temperature records.

The end-product of CRU's record was always available in public. What was controversial was that some of the national weather agencies' records couldn't be released because those agencies had copyright over the data, and were selling it commercially. There's also a possibility that the CRU scientists used copyright as an excuse to spite those who were using FOIA requests to harass them (as they saw it, and I for one don't blame them - requesting data you have no intention of using, for the sole purpose of making a noise about it, whether it's released or not is disingenuous at best).

In any case, pretty much all of the actual data, barring a few stations, was in the public domain long before the FOIA requests - those making the requests just couldn't get as much political mileage out of public domain data. You can still find all that data by going to RealClimate

Michael Mann, on the other hand, is a researcher who worked on the "hockey stick" graph - a consolidation of various paleoclimate data, collected from proxies like tree rings and ice cores. He and his co-authors overlaid several paleoclimate reconstructions over each other, to show how well they correlated, and found that they all correlated pretty well, and showed a marked rise in temperature during the industrial era. One controversy with this data is that they added instrument records (that is, the CRU temperature series) to the end of the chart (which you can see as the black line in the image), which shows more warming in recent times. Another is that one proxy (tree ring data) shows a decline in the proxy measurement (tree ring width) from the 1960s onwards, which on the face of it, should imply that temperatures are declining, but which no other data, including all the various instrument data show. Mann used a statistical trick of stopping the tree ring data with the 60s and tacking on the instrument data, a technique some people disagree with.

Anyway, the point is, none of Michael Mann's data was ever hidden away

One of many shenanigans

[sphealey]

This is but one of many shenanigans the new Virginia AG is involved in.

sPh

It is very serious

[Presto Vivace]

Even if the investigation comes up empty, as I expect it will, it could have a very damaging effect upon Mann's career. It also could have a chilling effect not only on other climate scientists, but even discouraging science students in even choosing a career in climate science.

Re:It is very serious

[AnonymousClown]

No! It'll make it COOLER!

Hey chicks! Look at me! I'm a badass motherfucking climate scientist that get's in trouble with the LAW! I'm STICK'N IT TO THE MAN!

That's right! And climate scientist will be getting motor cycles and leather jackets with HOT CHICKS on the back!

Yep. This will INCREASE science enrollment!

Re:It is very serious

[AHuxley]

In one stroke turn many sciences outside maths or military industrial engineering disciplines into 'arts' in the eyes of the US public.
No more messy European style reports about cadmium, lead, beryllium, dioxin, strontium, the water table, air quality ect. by 'experts' in US courts.

Re:It is very serious

[MrHanky]

Just one quick point: you made up most of that yourself. The others, like the myth of "scientists 30 years ago" predicting another ice age, is pretty heavily debunked, and if you were interested in the truth at all, you'd know it.

Re:It is very serious

[Barrinmw]

There was an article in Time magazine about it 40 years ago. So how can you say it was a myth?

Re:It is very serious

[MrHanky]

That's pretty much my point. There was one article in Time Magazine 40 years ago. And one in Newsweek. And then you have this:

An enduring popular myth suggests that in the 1970s the climate science community was predicting “global cooling” and an “imminent” ice age, an observation frequently used by those who would undermine what climate scientists say today about the prospect of global warming. A review of the literature suggests that, on the contrary, greenhouse warming even then dominated scientists' thinking as being one of the most important forces shaping Earth's climate on human time scales.

(Wikipedia's summary: "A survey of the scientific literature from 1965 to 1979 found 7 articles predicting cooling and 44 predicting warming, with the warming articles also being cited much more often in subsequent scientific literature.")

Re:It is very serious

[Maestro4k]

It also could have a chilling effect not only on other climate scientists, but even discouraging science students in even choosing a career in climate science.

I suspect that's the plan, according to the article he's wanting documents from the period of 1999 - 2005, and it goes on to describe what's he's demanded be produced as:

Among the documents Cuccinelli demands are any and all emailed or written correspondence between or relating to Mann and more than 40 climate scientists, documents supporting any of five applications for the $484,875 in grants, and evidence of any documents that no longer exist along with proof of why, when, and how they were destroyed or disappeared.

I seriously, seriously doubt all the E-mail correspondence will still exist, we're talking about stuff that goes back 11 years. And when it does, and they can't prove "why, when and how" those E-mails were lost exactly, this asshole will claim it's all some giant cover-up. No matter what Mann and the UVA does they're going to lose here, because this isn't a legit investigation, it's a political witch-hunt pure and simple. McCarthy would be proud.

This disgusts me greatly, I'm torn between being glad I'm not living in Virginia and wishing I was so I could raise holy hell at the waste of my tax dollars on political witch-hunts by this jerk. Maybe Virginia voters will wake up and demand an investigation into Cuccinelli's waste of their tax dollars under the same law he's abusing here.

Re:It is very serious

[Barrinmw]

The point is, I would highly doubt that a news periodical like Time would just pull a story out of their arses without any actual basis to them.

Re:It is very serious

[WeatherGod]

And you are right... they didn't pull it out of their asses. There were *some* scientific literature out there saying that an ice age was pending. It was just a lot more interesting than the many more scientific literatures that were saying that the Earth was warming.

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1

Re:It is very serious

[phantomfive]

(Wikipedia's summary: "A survey of the scientific literature from 1965 to 1979 found 7 articles predicting cooling and 44 predicting warming, with the warming articles also being cited much more often in subsequent scientific literature.")

It doesn't really make a difference as far as the facts around global warming are concerned, but that study is wrong in its conclusion. Scientists were thinking about global cooling. I had a textbook growing up from the 50s talking about how eventually the earth would have another ice age, and some of the challenges we would have dealing with it.

The thing is, it was settled science by the 70s, so it's not surprising that you wouldn't find many articles about the topic (you don't find many articles predicting the rate of apples falling). Even now, the basic science is considered sound, there is still predicted cooling, but the predicted shift into an ice age is much farther away than the predicted global warming, so people don't worry about it as much. If people are still alive when the next ice age hits, its a very real problem they will have to deal with.

Re:It is very serious

[AK Marc]

I suspect that's the plan, according to the article he's wanting documents from the period of 1999 - 2005, and it goes on to describe what's he's demanded be produced as:

The White House couldn't even answer demands about emails from more recent time. And for retro-justifying $500,000 in grants (it's not that much, under $100k per year for 6 years), it'll take about that much more to account for it. Produce every document suspected to exist, or justify its non existence is the order. And he doesn't care if that's impractical. In fact he wants it to be. I'm sure he thinks that they'll not provide anything incriminating, but that they'll be unable to provide everything, and what isn't provided won't have accurate destruction history (I know I don't record emails as I destroy them). And so, any single missing document of the thousands or tens of thousands he's expecting and he'll have his "proof" that they must have done something because they couldn't comply with his simple request.

It's not a witch hunt. He has the witch he wants. This is the burning. Investigations as a punishment is nothing new. Even if exonerated, it will be a blow against the reputation of Michael Mann and the treasury of Virgina.

Re:It is very serious

[MrHanky]

Of course the earth eventually will have another ice age. Those tend to come up now and then. Anthropogenic global cooling due to aerosols is something entirely different, and that's the subject here.

Re:It is very serious

[dcollins]

"How soon do we forget that 30 years ago scientists were predicting a second ice age."

Bullshit. Here's an example of what was being popularly discussed back in the 80's: By way of a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon (3rd one down): http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/political-economy-of-calvin-and-hobbes-3.html

Hey Mom, what's this I hear about the greenhouse effect? They say the pollutants we dump in the air are trapping the sun's heat and it's going to melt the polar ice caps! Sure, you'll be gone when it happens, but I won't! Nice planet you're leaving me!

If a newspaper cartoon could get this basically right 20+ years ago, what's your fucking excuse? (Note: Watterson cartoon was erroneous in not expecting global changes soon enough.)

Re:It is very serious

[Capsaicin]

There was an article in Time magazine about it 40 years ago.

If there were not a several hundred papers in peer reviewed ISI journals proving (or even raising the possibility) that an ice age was on the doorstep, then it can hardly be said that anything approaching the current consensus on warming existed, can it? Can you cite several hundred? Can you cite one hundred? How about a dozen? Half a dozen ...

No you can't! And you can't because the notion that any consensus existed in the 70s (or 80s) among expert scientists that an ice age was imminent is a myth. Or, to call a spade a spade, it's a lie.

Now it's true that some scientists mused about the possibility (after all 3 were quoted in the Newsweek article). And you know one the bases for their concern? It was the that relative to the emerging paleo record, the C20th showed unusually pronounced warming. It looked like we were a the peak of a cycle! Now, of course, we know exactly why that warming had taken place.

So how can you say it was a myth?

Easy. There was an article in Time magazine (or Newsweek) about it! :P

Re:It is very serious

[Capsaicin]

The thing is, it was settled science by the 70s, so it's not surprising that you wouldn't find many articles about the topic.

In that case why does the disinformation machine sprout the line about scientists arguing for an imminent ice age in the 70s, rather than say the 40s? If they were then surely there should be some literature. The clear implication being made is that a majority of experts in the 70s believed an ice age was approaching (quickly). The facts, as you cited them 7 papers predicting cooling, 44 warming give the lie to that.

Secondly, while Milankovitch obviously did his work earlier (he died in 1958), it is far from true that even the periodic nature of glacials, and how those periods are determined, was "settled science" by the 70s. The work on ice ages was very alive in the 70s (you'll find more than 7 papers which don't predict an "immient" ice age) and certainly not settled until after the publication of this paper in 1976.

Re:It is very serious

[phantomfive]

You seem to be missing some important parts of the climate theory, check out the milankovitch cycles. It's actually testable, identifiable, and is fairly well accepted. It explains why eventually there will be another ice age.

On the other hand

[Presto Vivace]

it is a great day for economic development in DC and Maryland, who is going to locate a scientific research institution or bio-technology business in Virginia with this going on?

Re:Fuck yeah!

[Anonymous Coward]

He deserves jail for Transformers 2 alone!

You're thinking of Michael Bay. This is the guy who produced Miami Vice. Now quit spreading misinformation!

Re:You mean you *HOPE* it's trolling

[Cyberax]

"Because if he's not, and Mann DID commit some sort of fraud, any and all AGW claims will be blown to smithereens."

Even if we assume that Mann bribed all scientists reviewing his work, killed Kennedy and in fact is a reincarnation of Hitler (pre-emptive Godwining) - it won't change ANYTHING.

Mann's papers are just several of many thousands, written by different teams from various parts of the world with different methodologies and data sources used.

consider this...

[buddyglass]

Can you envision any scenario where a republican calling for a fraud investigation related to climate research would not be criticized as "politicizing science"? I agree that's probably what's happening in this particular case, but it seems that any call for an investigation would end up being impugned as "politicizing science" regardless of the investigation's merits.

Re:consider this...

[Trepidity]

Probably because it is politicizing science regardless of the merits. The way science operates is not generally by having attorneys general investigating the merits of scientific papers. If something was wrong or fraudulent, that's a job for journal editorial staff and university misconduct boards to sort out.

Similarly, it'd be correctly considered "politicizing science" if democrats launched a fraud investigation of a libertarian economist, regardless of whether that economist did or didn't fabricate evidence. The attorney general is just not the right person to do it.

Re:consider this...

[je ne sais quoi]

Normally, investigations start because there is suspected wrongdoing. Here's the quote from TFA about the suspected wrongdoing here:

"Since it's public money, there's enough controversy to look in to the possible manipulation of data," says Dr. Charles Battig, president of the nonprofit Piedmont Chapter Virginia Scientists and Engineers for Energy and Environment, a group that doubts the underpinnings of climate change theory.

I'll be the first to recognize that Mann's hockey stick has some issues with the older data. Unfortunately, there is a difference between manipulation of data for a political reason and just being wrong. Most science, when first published, is wrong and scientists try to be clear that the data they present has significant uncertainty attached to it (this is often forgotten by the media looking for a sensational story).

Given that, let me turn your question around: given that as a political entity, Republicans generally have disavowed that any climate change is possible how could anyone as a member of that political entity actually evaluate the difference between Mann being wrong and Mann committing fraud in an unbiased way? I don't think they can, they don't have any credibility on this topic.

Re:consider this...

[oiron]

If the investigation had any "merits", could he please find a few decent scientists who know about this stuff (either worked in the field or in allied fields) who might conduct it, instead of doing it as a political witch-hunt?

If not, the criticism is entirely valid.

Re:consider this...

[Sique]

No. If it is scientific fraud, then normaly the colleagues would complain (as it happened with those high profile frauds like Jan Hendrik Schön or Hwang Woo-Suk). If it is financial fraud, normally the finance departement of the university would complain. If someone from outside calls it fraud and starts an investigation, it always sounds like politics.

Another Carpetbagger

[mbone]

He is just another Republican carpetbagger (from New Jersey). These grifters evidently think that everyone in the South is an easy mark.

Re:Another Carpetbagger

[mbone]

Oh, and he apparently doesn't like our state seal, either.

Re:You mean you *HOPE* it's trolling

[Barrinmw]

I thought Copenhagen stalled because a third of the poorest countries were angry that they would not be allowed to develop and that us Big Countries were getting to much of an advantage?

You Commit Three Felonies a Day

[taxman_10m]

Boston civil-liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate calls his new book "Three Felonies a Day," referring to the number of crimes he estimates the average American now unwittingly commits because of vague laws. New technology adds its own complexity, making innocent activity potentially criminal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574438900830760842.html

Re:You Commit Three Felonies a Day

[je ne sais quoi]

This is true. I hate to say it, but unfortunately some scientists do play a little too fast and loose with their research dollars. The fact is, you can't maintain a research program without moving some money around sometimes to fill in the gaps. These are things like one research grant ending, but the graduate student being paid as a research assistant hasn't finished his or her degree quit yet because they showed up half way through the grant starting (the start of the grant and finding the student are almost never coincident), and so you support that student with another grant for a semester or two until they finish. The alternative is to let the student go unpaid with no degree, but this too will be disaster for a professor if he or she can't graduate students.

Unless Mann is a saint, even if he is not truly fraudulent with his funds, he will be hard pressed to defend every last research dollar spent under his program. He could be found guilty for nothing more than what is an accepted practice among researchers because the alternative is a non-workable research program.

Re:You mean you *HOPE* it's trolling

[Cyberax]

Considering that much of AGW research was done long before Mann's papers - it's still won't change anything.

His Official Policy on Homosexuality Is No Secret

[eldavojohn]

He's also the asshole that told all the public universities in Virginia they could no longer have policies of non-discrimination towards gays.

Stay classy.

Well, I live in Northern Virginia by DC so I'm painfully aware of his policies. In 2004, as a State Senator in Virginia's Senate, he stated "Homosexuality is wrong." This was in regards to a bill that would be introduced to add homosexuality under hate crime legislation after a particularly disturbing case. Cuccinelli vowed to fight any extension of gay rights. He would be reelected in 2007 and appointed as Attorney General this year.

Your fancy logic is no use here, this is politics. You have to disprove Cuccinelli's belief that "homosexuality is wrong" and his apparent reinforcement that it moves him up the voting chain so the populace agrees. Good luck, I sometimes have to interact with these people and often just sidestep any conversation in regards to gay rights (trust me, it's not worth it).

It doesn't end at gay rights either.

Great Seal of Virginia

[Col. Klink (retired)]

The motto on the Great Seal of Virginia is "Sic Semper Tyrannis". It means "thus always to yyrants" and was attributed to Brutus after stabbing Caesar and was also what John Wilkes Booth said after murdering Lincoln. Timothy McVeigh was wearing the motto (with a picture of Lincoln, not the VA seal) when we was arrested.

That (now) hateful phrase remains on the seal, but at least the cartoon titty is gone.

Re:Great Seal of Virginia

[tokul]

The motto on the Great Seal of Virginia is "Sic Semper Tyrannis". It means "thus always to yyrants" and was attributed to Brutus after stabbing Caesar and was also what John Wilkes Booth said after murdering Lincoln. Timothy McVeigh was wearing the motto (with a picture of Lincoln, not the VA seal) when we was arrested.


That (now) hateful phrase remains on the seal, but at least the cartoon titty is gone.

It can also be translated as "death to tyrants". I am pretty sure that democrats or liberals will agree with that phrase. Phase is not hateful, but universal. It can be used by any side and hatefulness depends only on which side you are. You might call it hateful only due to link to Lincoln. Caesar was tyrant and Brutus was right calling him tyrant. Julius Caesar gained his post by using military powers. Lincoln was good fellow in North, but he was aggressor or tyrant for South.

Titty chick was from 18th century. It is related to some titty chick from Helenic age. There are lots of titty chicks from these times. Would you like to destroy all of them? If you don't like them and want to destroy them, you are no different from Taliban commanders, who destroyed 1500 year old Budhas.

Re:Great Seal of Virginia

[Col. Klink (retired)]

Sorry, forgot my tag. I don't really have a problem with nudity (cartoon or otherwise). I was just commenting on the fact that our right-leaning AG is so opposed to nudity but doesn't see any problem with that phrase on the seal. "Death to tyrants" is fine, except that "tyrant" has been a bit overused (Cuccinelli previously believed that Obama was born in Kenya).

It's also useful to consider the phrase in context, and given that VA was the capital of the rebellion and still celebrates Lee-Jackson Day, it's a pretty insensitive in this context. Maybe not as insensitive as Maryland's state song which explicitly praises Lincoln's assassination, but y'know, still a bit insensitive.

Re: Politicizing science?

[Black Parrot]

'Global warming' -- sorry, I forgot, it became 'climate change' when the planet stopped warming

I guess the glaciers in Glacier National Park are disappearing because we don't allow enough logging to keep the trees in check, and a northwest passage is opening up because we tolerate too many whales.

Mann Should Have Stayed In Florida

[DynaSoar]

He didn't have all these problems when he was doing Miami Vice.

Good.

[drolli]

Its better to test these claims in front of a court than to listen to the defamation of sciene much longer. Much easier to defend yourself there.

Re:Good.

[oiron]

Science should be defended by peer review and by thesis defence, not by challenging it in a court of law, with the possibility of a legal punishment for being wrong, or for producing a politically inconvenient result.

Though this is becoming a bit of a Godwin by itself, I'll mention Galileo here...

Re:Good.

[drolli]

Science should be defended by peer review and by thesis defence, not by challenging it in a court of law, with the possibility of a legal punishment for being wrong, or for producing a politically inconvenient result.

I agree. I am a scientist myself. However, i am also an employee. Instead of letting idiotic morons who believe the earth is 6000years old and relativity is bullshit because its to complicated for them (see Andrew Schlafly) throw mud on me in public, i would rather prefer that they go to court. Because then there is a good chances it hurts them.

Re:You mean you *HOPE* it's trolling

[Kreigaffe]

I thought it failed because the poorest third were angry that they weren't going to be guilt-tripping the developed third into propping them up through international welfare.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that's what actually happened.

Not a matter of "YOU BROWN FOLK STAY POOR". We drove our car through standing water and it flooded, killed our car, we've got a mess on our hands. We're waving our arms shouting "Look if you go this way, global warming. Bad shit. Go around the long way. It's harder, but if we had known about this shit we'd be going that way too".. meanwhile the third world refuses to understand what we're saying, and instead are just preoccupied with the fact that we went right through the high water and now they have to go around. ... but more than that, what they REALLY want is just reparations from the industrialized world. Nothing like a big fat annual check for never managing to get a working competitive economy in order.

Re:Politicizing science?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, a leading climate scientist made that statement recently. Do you understand what the term statistically significant means, and what the implications of that observation are? Two important points to remember are that such an observation is not inconsistent with AGW, and that you cannot do statistics on a sample of one.

If each year we look back and determine whether there was statistically significant warming in the past X years, we would expect to see no statistically significant warming in some years. Similarly, if you throw loaded dice time and time again, you would expect some runs that appear to show no statistically significant deviation from what would be expected from fair dice.

Not Appointed

[waldoj]

Actually, Cuccinelli wasn't "appointed" as attorney general—he was elected. He defeated Democrat Steve Shannon by a huge margin. We chose to have this guy as AG, and it wasn't even close. Any informed voter should have known what they were getting into with Cuccinelli. He's really, really far right, and he's never hid it. It doesn't speak well of Virginia.

Re:Not Appointed

[KDR_11k]

The pope counts as a liberal by US standards.

It's 2010!

[M. Baranczak]

You would think that by this time, the discussion would have moved from "is global warming real?" to "what do we do about it?" No such luck.

Re:It's 2010!

[timmarhy]

this is one of the key issues i've had with global warming to date, people HATE you questioning and got totally hostile. that isn't science at all, it's religion.

Re:It's 2010!

[maxume]

Fusion is awfully damn hard. The easiest proposals depend on a magnetic bottle we don't know how to build surrounded by perfect shielding that we don't know how to make (it has to capture nearly every neutron released by the fusion reaction and use it to convert lithium into tritium; you can make the tritium in a fission reactor, but getting enough of it that way would cost about $100 million a week at today's prices. Once you have the tritium, you have to make sure you use damn near all of it, and hydrogen has a fun habit of leaking.).

Laser pinches offer a different path to fusion, but they also need a lot of fuel, about 90,000 pellets a day. Current facilities make about 6 pellets a year, at a cost of $1 million per.

Lest you think I am just some crank making stuff up, this is from a Scientific American article published in March (sorry about the paywall):

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fusions-false-dawn

And those are just the fuel problems.

That doesn't mean it is impossible, but we aren't anywhere close, even though we are close to technical breakeven (where a reaction releases more energy than was used to initiate it).

Re:It's 2010!

[bunratty]

No, people don't HATE you questioning. What people HATE is the shoddy reasoning that is being put forth as if it is a serious rebuttal of climate science. It's junk!

Re:It's 2010!

[FooGoo]

What's convenient though is that the people who are promoting AGW are the same people who are questioning the credentials/intelligence of anyone who questions their conclusions. If it was such a serious issue you'd think they would have been much more transparent in their data and methodologies. Gaming the journals and the incestuous nature of the AGW cliques doesn't help their cause either. I may be naive but to me one of the responsibilities of being a scientist is to educate humanity on the nature of things...instead these scientists seem more interested in doing the journal/funding circle jerk then answering any questions that may impact their standing in their clique or their funding streams.

If they are wrong, partially wrong thats fine...it's the nature of science. But if you adamantly say you are correct you better be able to prove it...attacking anyone who raises concerns just demeans the profession.

Re:His Official Policy on Homosexuality Is No Secr

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to disprove Cuccinelli's belief that "homosexuality is wrong" and his apparent reinforcement that it moves him up the voting chain so the populace agrees.

There are large portions of the population which (for whatever reason) don't want to support "gay rights".

The goal then, should be to re-frame the argument in a way as to remove the government from areas which it doesn't belong (like defining marriage).
Think of it this way, if the government had no concern for marriage and only "cared" about civil unions, what issue would it be what the sexes of the two parties are?

You want to "marry" a man or woman or child or goat or rock (or a mix), that's between you and the church.
Everything else is a contract, let the lawyers fight over it.

With any luck U VA will resist the subpoena

[Presto Vivace]

but I woulf not bet on it. Besides, the idea may not be to prove anything, just a selected release of specific emails to prove anything that Cuccinelli pleases. We have a junior Kenneth Starr on our hands.

Re:With any luck U VA will resist the subpoena

[SashaMan]

I'm sure UVA will resist the subpoena, but as a UVA grad, shit like this is going to KILL the university. Please tell me what self-respecting scientist would want to work there now?

Politics in Virginia is always a battle between liberal northern VA, which has had huge growth in recent years and is very socially tolerant due to large numbers of highly educated immigrants, and the more rural rest of the state. The one thing I'm hopeful about is that this will royally piss off tons of northern VA voters because they will see it as lowering the quality of UVA, which is seen as a great value as one of the best public universities in the US.

Re:His Official Policy on Homosexuality Is No Secr

[capnkr]

Hate to go Off Topic on this homosexuality discussion (???), but in reference to your statement in the article summary at top, the last sentence you wrote says:

"No end in sight for the politicizing of the science and research surrounding climate change."

As I recall it was Al Gore who first politicized this area of science. How much of the blame does he get for letting the political genie out of the bottle on a topic so important as this one could be? Seems to me that if we are going to bust anyones chops for that particular offense, it oughta be his...

Of course, YMWV.

News = entertainment

[sphealey]

> The point is, I would highly doubt that a news periodical like Time would
> just pull a story out of their arses without any actual basis to them.

You do understand that even in their greatest era of actual news reporting, all news-providing entities are in the fundamental business of providing entertainment for their customers? And that newness, controversy, and oh-my-gawd-doom stories have been entertaining to the masses since, oh 30,000 BC? The idea that anything that appears in Time Magazine has a factual basis, or even a strong factual basis, can be easily refuted by scanning through a few issues from the 1930s.

sPh

This is not about "punishing" science

[davide marney]

My guess is this has little to do with Michael Mann or the University of Virginia. This has everything to do with the AG's petition to put the EPA's threatened regulation of carbon dioxide under review. The AG is seeking to undermine the EPA's grounds for action by showing that it is based on weak, missing, or faulty scientific evidence.

The law the AG is using is the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act, a relatively new "whistleblower" law. The kinds of fraud this law attempts to cover are:

* Submitting false service records or samples in order to show better-than-actual performance.

* Falsifying natural resource production records -- Pumping, mining or harvesting more natural resources from public lands that is actually reported to the government.

* Billing for research that was never conducted; falsifying research data that was paid for by the U.S. government.

Arguably, if the AG can show that the climate science was cooked, he could have a case. If he wins it, he may have established a legal precedent for throwing out the climate data in the EPA case.

This sounds like a pretty smart legal move, if you are a Republican and you control the governorship of Virginia.

I was going to mod you down, but...

[Overzeetop]

I'd rather correct you:

The AG's job regarding legal advice is to provide it in response to requests from state institutions. In this case, I believe, nobody asked him - he just decided that it was in his political interest to create the opinion from his reading of the laws.

He's - if I can borrow the term - legislating from the AG's office. I'd rather he go back to prosecuting people who harm society by breaking the law. (We'll, I'd rather he leave office. Steve Shannon is no great shakes, but I voted for him as a way to vote against this kind of activism).

Re:I was going to mod you down, but...

[Martin Blank]

State AGs do this on a regular basis. If they see something that they believe could become contentious, whether it be a law or a court ruling, they'll often issue a legal opinion to provide guidance on how to implement the matter before being formally asked to do so in order to minimize any delay. California's AGs, both Democrat and Republican, have been doing it for as long as I can remember and I've heard of numerous other states' AGs that have done similar things.

And what great timing...

[matunos]

...what with ecological oblivion facing the Gulf Coast.

Not surpising given this

[s2jcpete]

The same AG who changed the Virginia state seal to cover up a breast. The same state seal designed by George Wythe, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. http://hamptonroads.com/2010/04/cuccinelli-opts-more-modest-state-seal

Re: Politicizing science?

[Mspangler]

"I guess the glaciers in Glacier National Park are disappearing because we don't allow enough logging to keep the trees in check,"

Or a multi year drought reduces snow fall, so that glaciers recede even at constant temperature. Warming isn't the only thing that makes glaciers shrink, or that changes the width of tree rings.

Re:You mean you *HOPE* it's trolling

[quantaman]

Actually it's more of... well I can't think of a good metaphor.

But to say "Go around the long way. It's harder, but if we had known about this shit we'd be going that way too" is pretty disingenuous since we got rich going the easy way and still don't show any signs of being serious about going the hard way.

It's hypocritical of the developed nations who got rich filling the atmosphere with carbon to tell the developing nations they can't do the same while we're still filling the atmosphere with carbon.

Re:How to avoid being charged with fraud

[grumbel]

Except that his "lie" has been independently reproduced and been confirmed. Let me cite guardian.co.uk:

What counts in science, however, is not a single study. It is whether its finding can be replicated by others. Here Mann has been on a winning streak. Upwards of a dozen studies, using different statistical techniques or different combinations of proxy records, have produced reconstructions broadly similar to the original hockey stick. These reconstructions all have a hockey stick shaft and blade. While the shaft is not always as flat as Mann's version, it is present. Almost all support the main claim in the IPCC summary: that the 1990s was then probably the warmest decade for 1000 years.

Cuccinelli came out of "liberal" Fairfax County

[Presto Vivace]

Bob Marshall, the nuttiest right wing nut in all of Virginia, represents Prince William County.
The state has many regions, Southwest is different from Central Virginia, which is different from Hampton Roads and so forth.
It is not as simple as NoVA versus the rest of the state.

Re:His Official Policy on Homosexuality Is No Secr

[epiphani]

Well, yes, that is flamebait. Global warming was politicized long before Al Gore came along - however his success pushed it into the area of public conversation, and then it because more recognizable to a lot of people.

While I don't claim this piece is unbiased, it is _very_ informative on the politics behind global warming campaigning. It's also quite a few years old and possibly out of date, but certainly enlightening nonetheless. I recommend you have a look.

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/denialmachine/index.html

Now back to our regular topic, which has nothing at all to do with any of this post...

Re:His Official Policy on Homosexuality Is No Secr

[Arker]

Your fancy logic is no use here, this is politics. You have to disprove Cuccinelli's belief that "homosexuality is wrong" and his apparent reinforcement that it moves him up the voting chain so the populace agrees.

A very large percentage of the population around the world happens to agree with him. (I dont, personally, but they are clearly the majority around the world.)

However you do NOT have to convince them otherwise in order to convince them that gays should not be legally persecuted. You just have to convince them that the entire subject is outside of the proper purvue of the government to begin with, generally a much easier argument.

Of course, if what you want is not to simply put gay people on an even playing field legally, but you really want to give them special privileges instead, no argument is going to work with these people. Or with me either, for that matter. "Hate crime" legislation is dangerous nonsense. If violent crimes are not being dealt with properly, that is an issue to be dealt with across the board, but we should never have a law that imposes a heavier penalty for assaulting a member of a 'protected class' differently than an assault on any other citizen, and we also should insofar as at all possible avoid defining crimes by ultimately unknowable mental states of the aggressors, rather than simply by their actions.

Re:His Official Policy on Homosexuality Is No Secr

[JoshuaZ]

As I recall it was Al Gore who first politicized this area of science. How much of the blame does he get for letting the political genie out of the bottle on a topic so important as this one could be? Seems to me that if we are going to bust anyones chops for that particular offense, it oughta be his...

Does this mean that if someone is already involved in one political issue and they decide they really care strongly about something else they shouldn't discuss that issue in the public sphere? That seems unreasonable.

Re:His Official Policy on Homosexuality Is No Secr

[capnkr]

I'll have a look at that. WRT politicization of the issue, I would argue that pre-Gore, the concept/theory of GW was contested and debated, even hotly at times, but that it was he who made the idea of _A_GW a definitively and solely Democrat/liberal plank. As some of the data has refused to fit those theories, it has been interesting to watch the spin doctors morph AGW into what I think is a more likely and accurate way to put it - "climate change". Something Earth has experienced for its entire existence.

The skewing of data - which you may or may not believe happened, but I think did, and does, by *both* sides - has made me a skeptic of both sides respective points. I find it laughable that AGW proponents absolutely _refuse_ to publicly tackle the core issue if AGW is indeed happening: and that is that there are TOO MANY PEOPLE on Earth already, at least for the infrastructure we have in place to feed and house and move them around. Seems to me that if they want to stop AGW, they gotta start with the A part of the equation. But no, instead it's all electric cars and inefficient solar and wind power instead of proven nuclear, etc etc... OTOH are those who don't give a shit about all the things I truly love and enjoy, like pristine woodlands, healthy ecosystems, mountains and clean seas, because they are so short-sighted and materialistic that they cannot see the havoc they are sowing with their unabashed consumption of the very limited resources available on this little blue ball.

Daniel Quinn was onto something when he wrote:

"The premise of the Taker story is the world belongs to man...The premise of the Leaver story is man belongs to the world."

I enjoy life more as a Leaver.

peer reviewed 'balance'

[Sosetta]

If you look at popular magazine articles about global warming, they're 50-50 for supporting it or dissenting from it.

If you look at peer reviewed scientific articles, it's a slightly different balance. There's almost one article saying that global warming isn't happening. We'll call it zero. There are hundreds supporting global warming, with the major differences being in cause and extent and severity of future trends.

But most people don't read the peer reviewed articles. They read Time and Cosmopolitan and watch Fox News [sic]. Most people aren't qualified to have an educated opinion about global warming, because they aren't reading research, they're reading the words of people that don't know anything. I don't care how many times you tell me that, in your opinion, d(x^2)/dx = 3x. You're still wrong. I don't care how many people agree with you either. You're all wrong.

Climate Science isn't a popularity contest. It's science.

Re:His Official Policy on Homosexuality Is No Secr

[KDR_11k]

The vast majority of that overpopulation is in poor areas of the world where the CO2 output is fairly low, the western nations that produce all that pollution have very low growth or even declining populations.

Re:Parliamentary privilege?

[Q-Hack!]

Does the US have a concept of parliamentary privilege?

Is said republican willing to details his accusations of fraud outside of a legislative chamber?

What's the test for defamation in Virginia? Accusing someone's lifelong work of fraud in front of the world's media could potentially be libelous (IANAL).

I think you missed out on what the AG is. It is the duty of the Attorney General to investigate fraud and missuse of public money. Is this a witch hunt? Probably, but that doesn't mean he worng to investigate the claim of fraud.

Re:His Official Policy on Homosexuality Is No Secr

[Vintermann]

As I recall it was Al Gore who first politicized this area of science.

This is just silly. Anthropogenic global warming was politically opposed from the very start by pro-oil think tanks, and they kept the scientific concerns unnoticed for twenty years. There's no way such a major issue could not "become politicized", it was already. And while Al Gore was a politician, and talked about the threat of global warming comparatively early, the same could be said of Margaret Thatcher.

The question is not who made it a political issue. The question is who succeeded in making it a partisan political issue, and that was not Al Gore.

Re:His Official Policy on Homosexuality Is No Secr

[Vintermann]

it has been interesting to watch the spin doctors morph AGW into what I think is a more likely and accurate way to put it - "climate change". Something Earth has experienced for its entire existence.

It's been interesting to hear the narrative pushed at you from the wingnuts, you mean? Because the first notable paper on global warming, by Plass in 1956, was called “The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change”.

But apropos spin...

“'Climate change' is less frightening than 'global warming.' ... While global warming has catastrophic connotations attached to it, climate change suggests a more controllable and less emotional challenge”

Who wrote that? Republican strategist for the Bush administration, Frank Luntz, in 2002.

Re:His Official Policy on Homosexuality Is No Secr

[Vintermann]

The arguments for hate crime laws are not hard to understand.

If a white man beats up another white man after he has been to the polling booth, that's bad for a lot of reasons. If a white man beats up a black man after he has been to the polling booth, that's bad for all the aforementioned reasons, but it could also be an attempt to scare other black people from voting. It's not just an attack on that man, it's an attack on his class/category. A person motivated by hate may take the normal punishment for such a crime, and still consider it a success if it worked as intended.

Similar things would be attacks on gays in order to keep them in the closet, and from publicly defending their interests, attacks on muslim women who refuse to wear a veil, etc. Such attacks are already illegal for obvious reasons, but society believes (correctly, in my opinion) that commiting crimes in order to suppress minorities is especially bad, and deserving of extra sanction.

The only issue I have with hate crime laws is if they are directed against particular groups only. It's not what kind of group it is that matters, but the intent of the suppressing act.

In fact, 50% suggests a strong genetic link..

[chrb]

There is a good summary of separated homosexual twin studies here. The conclusion is that, if one twin is gay, then the probability of the other being gay is around 55%. Many people misunderstand genetics and statistics, and think that this implies being gay is not genetic, since they expect there to be a 100% probability "because it's genetic and twins have the same genes". This is a incorrect view. Quote from a more detailed explanation of why:

"Assume that 5% of males have a homosexual orientation as adults. Consider two identical newborn twin boys who were separated at birth and raised in different homes without any contact with each other. If homosexuality were caused by something in the environment, then, if twin #1 turned out to be gay, the chances of the other twin becoming a gay adults would only be about 5%. That is because the second twin would have been exposed to a totally different environment during his upbringing. So his chances of being gay would be the same as for any other male -- about 5%. But, studies have reliably shown that if one twin is gay, there is about a 55% chance that the other twin will be gay."

and about 50% of studies find that genetics is a significant factor in homosexuality and 50% do not

If one identical twin develops schizophrenia, the other twin has "only" a 48% chance of also developing the disorder. This does not mean that genetics is not a significant factor.

Re:His Official Policy on Homosexuality Is No Secr

[chrb]

it has been interesting to watch the spin doctors morph AGW into what I think is a more likely and accurate way to put it - "climate change". Something Earth has experienced for its entire existence.

"Global warming" is an accurate term - it was meant to refer to the global mean temperature increasing. The problem was that many non-scientists don't understand how mean values are calculated, and hence didn't understand that the mean could increase even though some regions might cool. The myth that Any Cooling Disproves Global Warming became widespread, and so scientists began to talk about "climate change" instead.

Government funded science is always politicized

[cavehobbit]

"No end in sight for the politicizing of the science and research surrounding climate change." Duh. Since the funding for it comes from government it is politicized from the start. What the OP is saying is that only disagreement or challenge to one viewpoint is politcs, the other side is pristine pure selfless logic. Crap. It's ALL politics. Why else do progressives attack anything that questions AGW? True science accepts challenges either as corrections to a theory or as test of validity.

Re:His Official Policy on Homosexuality Is No Secr

[jschottm]

Of course, if what you want is not to simply put gay people on an even playing field legally, but you really want to give them special privileges instead, no argument is going to work with these people.

Here is an example of one of the policies in question.

Is not being fired simply for being black a "special privilege?"
Is not being denied entrance as a student simply for being black a "special privilege?"
Is not being denied financial aid simply for being black a "special privilege?"
Is not being denied the ability to participate in graduation simply for being black a "special privilege?"
Is not being called a [racial slur of choice] in the workplace or the classroom a "special privilege?"

Now s/black/gay and s/racial/sexual/. Do any of the above statements make _more_ sense after that? People should be hired/accepted/funded/allowed participation from the best possible candidate regardless of race, military background, age, disability, religion, gender, nationality, and so forth. Because there have been problems with issues in the past, they have been enumerated as things you should not discriminate against. It's not providing [positive] special treatment, it's ensuring against [negative] special treatment.

If violent crimes are not being dealt with properly, that is an issue to be dealt with across the board, but we should never have a law that imposes a heavier penalty for assaulting a member of a 'protected class' differently than an assault on any other citizen

If basic laws provide sufficient deterrence to common crime but a specific class of people are still being targeted, then some kind of additional measure is needed. Let's say that there's an acceptable level of muggings - there's a few, but in general, the threat of imprisonment is enough to deter most would-be muggers, and the punishment/rehabilitation level is maximizes deterrence, minimizes state costs, and minimizes repeat offenders by effectively rehabilitating them. At the same time, anti-Catholic sentiment has caused a rampant level of muggings of nuns that is not deterred by the basic statues.

To alter the already correct formula that deters casual muggings to attempt to protect the nuns would be a societal harm.

Further, hate crime prosecutions are often done to change the venue when local forces are sympathetic to the cause and chose not to use the existing laws. For example, U.S. v. Cecil Price et al.

we also should insofar as at all possible avoid defining crimes by ultimately unknowable mental states of the aggressors, rather than simply by their actions.

By that logic there should be no distinction between involuntary manslaughter and first degree murder.

Re:His Official Policy on Homosexuality Is No Secr

[Troed]

there are TOO MANY PEOPLE on Earth already

Only if you assume there will be NO FURTHER TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT.

Which, of course, would be quite stupid to assume.

In reality, we can easily support hundreds of billions of people all living at what we would call "western standards", whatever that means in 20-80 years time.

Re:His Official Policy on Homosexuality Is No Secr

[Anonymous Coward]

Is not being fired simply for being black a "special privilege?"
Is not being denied entrance as a student simply for being black a "special privilege?"
Is not being denied financial aid simply for being black a "special privilege?"
Is not being denied the ability to participate in graduation simply for being black a "special privilege?"
Is not being called a [racial slur of choice] in the workplace or the classroom a "special privilege?"

In some sectors it is a special privilege not to be fired simply because you are black or a woman. Especially when everyone else is being fired. This is racism just like being fired just because of the color of your skin. The examples you mentioned have nothing to do with hate crimes only discrimination with the possible example of your last example. People should not be discriminated against for any reason that isn't job related. And before you get your panties in a bunch let me explain that: You don't hire someone who can't lift 40kg if the job requires you to lift 40kg. You don't hire someone who has expressed rabid and violent anti-semism to help Jews. You don't hire a black man to infiltrate the KKK.

Further, hate crime prosecutions are often done to change the venue when local forces are sympathetic to the cause and chose not to use the existing laws. For example, U.S. v. Cecil Price et al.

This is actually one of the few positive uses of hate crime legislation, to change the venue of a case. Which I'm sure is covered under some other law as well but not being a lawyer and never studied law I don't know for sure.

we also should insofar as at all possible avoid defining crimes by ultimately unknowable mental states of the aggressors, rather than simply by their actions.

By that logic there should be no distinction between involuntary manslaughter and first degree murder.

But that is a straw-man argument because the mental states of many murders can be determined while an assault on a black/latino/gay man usually isn't. If you beat your wife to death with a blender it is involuntary murder but if you poisoned her that is first degree murder because the poison required planing (most of time). If I beat up a black man is it because I wanted his wallet or because he was black and just happen to steal his wallet? And what about the other way around? Where a black/latino/gay man beats me up (whiter then freshly fallen snow) because I express an opinion they strongly disagree with? If hate crimes are needed then they shouldn't be discriminatory either.

Re:His Official Policy on Homosexuality Is No Secr

[Attila Dimedici]

The reason that many people use any cooling as "disproof" of Global Warming is because proponents of AGW have use any warming as "proof" of Global Warming.

Re:His Official Policy on Homosexuality Is No Secr

[Cyberax]

"It's been interesting to hear the narrative pushed at you from the wingnuts, you mean? Because the first notable paper on global warming, by Plass in 1956, was called “The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change”."

Personally, in these cases I refer them to Svante Arrhenius, who had calculated that doubling CO2 level raises temperature by 4-5C. In 1908.

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

Re:His Official Policy on Homosexuality Is No Secr

[Attila Dimedici]

Two people have responded with justifications for "hate crime" legislation. The problem is that those proposing these laws never try and prove that existing laws are insufficient detterent. For example, the argument was made in 2000 that hate crime legislation was needed in Texas because of the guys who drug a black man behind a pickup. Two of the three involved were sentenced to death. There was no evidence that the third was involved because of racism. Texas has no "hate crime" laws, yet this case was used to promote the idea of passing one. Exactly what greater penalty would a "hate crime" law have imposed on the men sentenced to death (note: there was no evidence that the one who was not sentenced to death had racial motivations in committing the crime).

Re:His Official Policy on Homosexuality Is No Secr

[NapalmScatterBrain]

The amount of human life that can be sustained on the planet is directly attributed to the resources required to sustain them, and this amount of resources goes down as technological advances allow them to be created more efficiently. We are now growing 10 times more corn/acre than we did 50 years ago. Genetically engineered crops won't require fertilizer or pesticides, and will use far less water. While hundreds of billions is far fetched, the basic point is this: If we used 1700's agricultural and energy technology(wood burning stoves for heating/cooking) this planet wouldn't be able to support a tenth of the current population. It would be worse if we were all hunter gatherers. The viewpoint that the solution is less people is, frankly, myopic.

Re:His Official Policy on Homosexuality Is No Secr

[epiphani]

As some of the data has refused to fit those theories, it has been interesting to watch the spin doctors morph AGW into what I think is a more likely and accurate way to put it - "climate change".

Oddly enough, that exact terminology change is covered in the documentary I mentioned. As well as the reasons behind it.

I find it laughable that AGW proponents absolutely _refuse_ to publicly tackle the core issue if AGW is indeed happening: and that is that there are TOO MANY PEOPLE on Earth already

Lucky for us, we don't have to guess about this. Sustainability has been modeled extensively, and we're generally expected to sort out the "sweet spot" in population around 8.4 Billion. We're just over 7 billion now. This is not the problem. Source.

instead it's all electric cars and inefficient solar and wind power instead of proven nuclear

You're taking the extreme end of the argument and presenting it as the central argument. I'm all for electric cars, solar and wind power, but I'm also all for huge deployments of nuclear. And nuclear is easier to deploy fast.

they are so short-sighted and materialistic that they cannot see the havoc they are sowing with their unabashed consumption of the very limited resources available on this little blue ball

No, I care deeply about healthy ecosystems. I also like consuming. I want energy available in massive amounts, cheap and plentiful, but with little environmental impact.

Fixing our current issues does not require some Luddite reversion, it requires intelligent, measured, and prompt application of technology. Unfortunately, it is my belief that this directly conflicts with vested corporate interests, and that is why we're even having this debate.